Remembering Air India

Dr. Angela Failler's project, Building Communities of Memory: Remembrance Practice After the 1985 Air India Bombings, was initially funded by a SSHRC Standard Research Grant (2010-2013). It involves a study of remembrance practices dedicated to the Air India bombings including public memorials and commemorative events, state-sponsored memory-justice processes, and media and artistic representations. It also conceptualizes a framework for building “communities of memory” to allow those most immediately affected by the bombings to be joined by others in remembrance. 

Through the edited collection, The Art of Mourning: Remembering Air India co-authored by Dr. Failler, and an in-development sole-authored manuscript by Failler titled Public Memory and the Cultural Afterlife of the 1985 Air India Bombings, Failler has established relationships with artists who have represented the bombings in their work, many  who, themselves, lost family members in the bombings. Failler plans to bring these artists together with other family members, researchers, and experienced curators to participate in a “Curatorial Dreaming Workshop” toward the design of an exhibition to be shown in public spaces and also plans to develop and build an on-line project using Scalar, a platform designed for scholars to write and disseminate long-form, media-rich scholarship digitally. This project would be an experiment in building web-based communities of memory, serving a three-fold purpose as: (1) a space for families, artists, cultural producers and academics to connect and exchange ideas and work on questions of representation and remembrance of the 1985 Air India bombings; (2) a data repository to electronically archive resources; (3) an interactive virtual exhibit site for new work that emerges as a result of the exchanges among this network.

To mark the 40th anniversary of the Air India bombing on June 23, 2025, Dr. Failler participated in a commemorative conference at McMaster University, held on May 24 and 25, 2025 in memory of the victims of the Flight 182 tragedy, and to recognize the ongoing grief and activism of their families. She joined families of the Air India bombing victims and others on the 40th anniversary of the tragedy to call for its inclusion in school curriculum and for representation in historical repositories, such as museums. The attention on this tragedy seeks to rectify a glaring gap in Canadians' knowledge of the largest mass murder in Canadian history.